The Forging of Fantom
Page 21
‘Then for Dusanka’s sake ….’ he whispered.
‘Yes?’
‘Release me. I never thought to curse my strength. Give me more weight.’
So I was able now to do what in the past I had longed to do; kill Jaraj. And as I laboured to lift the heavy rocks and add them to the pile which was crushing him, I wept without cease.
I never wept at a man’s dying again.
Scarcely had Jaraj breathed his last when the door opened and minutes later I was before the Three again. No darkened room this time, but face to face with the light of mid-morning streaming through the windows.
They were no fools these men. They knew how little profit there was in interrogating a man eager for death and indifferent to pain. But give him food, warmth, a change of clothing, a bottle of wine, let him hear of the ordinary pleasures of life, and top it all with the lust for vengeance, and you have a different game of pallone.
I told them all I knew, at least all that seemed relevant. I had no idea of what they really wanted from me, but I was very willing to give it to them. Only when I reached the point of Zanetta’s intervention did I falter. In my own pain, I had almost forgotten hers.
Stumblingly, for I did not doubt the answer, I inquired what had become of her.
‘Dead,’ they told me. Expectation did not numb the shock. Well, Godfrey was not going to leave such a witness against him when he must have thought all his tracks else were covered. But how I wondered would he have accounted for her death?
I soon found out.
At a sign from one of the Three, the sergeant advanced with a broad-bladed slightly curved sword in his hand. I recognized it at once. It was my old cutlass, Godfrey’s gift to me. But it did not shine as I was wont to make it with much sharpening and polishing. It was dull and rust-coloured almost to the hilt. But not with rust.
‘This is your sword?’ asked the Inquisitor.
I nodded.
‘It was found plunged deep in the Lady Zanetta’s body,’ he said. ‘Sit down!’
For I had risen in horror and fear at this latest trick of Godfrey’s.
‘Finish your tale,’ he commanded as I subsided.
There was not much left to tell, which was well, for I could hardly find the words to tell it.
When I finished, the dead-eyed Inquisitor spoke in the thin rustly tones that reminded me of Jaraj’s dying whispers.
‘Carlo Fantom,’ he said, ‘though we are inclined to believe you did not strike the blow that slew the Lady Zanetta, yet it was because of you that it was struck.’
I sat with bowed head. I could not deny it.
‘And you are, by your own admission,’ he continued, ‘a sacrilegious thief and a plotter against the State ….’
Now I was stung to denial.
‘No plotter!’ I protested. ‘I knew of plots, but I never made them. And also it seems everyone else in the city was privy to the plots I knew of!’
‘A fine point,’ he said dryly. ‘You attended meetings of the subversive group called the Accademia delli Mascherati …’
‘Nothing subversive was ever spoken in my presence!’ I denied hotly. ‘Indeed I heard nothing but such stupidities as which is the king of beasts? who owns the moon? are the notes of the gamut rightly ordered? Nothing but sense was subverted here!’
They exchanged glances and smiled.
‘Stupidities indeed, Carlo,’ said scratchy-voice in an almost kindly tone. ‘But remember, the devil may speak in parables too. However much your own foolish ignorance may have led you into errors unawares, there are still sins enough that you knew full well you were committing. Withdraw now.’
Outside I waited uneasily in an antechamber. I could not understand my position. It seemed to me either I was what I knew I was, a youthful foreign criminal of no standing and therefore of little importance, or what I might appear to others, a black-dyed villain and conspirator who should be dangling with the other fresh fruit between the marble columns.
Yet I was not in chains, nor, though the sergeant of the Guard stood by me, was I even under close constraint. Indeed, other people moved freely through the room in which I waited, doubtless on their way in turn to talk to the Three.
Sir Henry Wotton, the English Ambassador, dressed in full official regalia in preparation for the day’s ceremonial, passed me by without a glance. But on his way back he stopped and sat beside me.
‘I am sorry to see you in this coil, Master Fantom,’ he said. ‘What a load of trouble this masquerader has caused us both!’
‘Masquerader?’ I said.
‘Aye. ’Tis firmly established, and by your evidence too, that this man was no English subject, but one Godislav, an infamous Uskok chief.’
So that was the line they were taking!
‘I only took him into my employ the better to serve the interests of Venice,’ Wotton continued, like an actor rehearsing his new script.
‘And were you pleased with his service?’ I could not help mocking.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘In part. He it was who passed on all the details of this notorious plot. So steeped in treachery was he that he scrupled not to betray all sides for money.’
It made sense. Godfrey was at least consistent.
Wotton rose as if to go, but seemed a little hesitant.
‘Did he speak much of me to you?’ he inquired diffidently.
‘Nothing but praise,’ I assured him. This didn’t make him happy, I could tell.
‘He did not perchance leave any papers in your care?’ he pursued. ‘I only ask because, as the English Ambassador, I must have a care for the estates of His Majesty, King James’s subjects, if they die overseas.’
‘He is not yet dead,’ I observed drily. ‘Nor is he, according to your own belief, an English subject. So on both accounts your title to his papers is thin. But rest quiet, Sir Henry. I certainly have none, though for the Ten I cannot speak.’
He left then, looking more worried than ever. The sergeant and I exchanged glances and I was surprised to find I could still raise a faint smile, for it was clear to me that Godfrey must have undertaken various jobs for Sir Henry that he would rather never came to light!
I was summoned back into the presence of the Three shortly afterwards. They looked very stern in their high-backed chairs. Behind them was a dark-robed figure so pale and haggard that he might have been an icon of some painfully martyred saint. I felt a shock as I recognized Benetto. I believe he scarcely knew me, or anyone. His eyes were sunk almost out of sight in great dark hollows and they saw nothing except whatever ghosts haunted him.
‘Carlo Fantom,’ said the Chief Inquisitor. ‘The Republic of Venice has shown you naught but kindness and mercy and you have returned naught but contempt and betrayal.’
This was a hell of a start. God’s noose! I thought. They’re going to pass sentence!
‘You came here as a pirate, and the State gave you your freedom. When your life was endangered, the State intervened to save you.’
This could only be a reference to my near-drowning at the hands of Basadonna and his thugs. I still didn’t understand why the dry-voiced Inquisitor had intervened. The next statement made all clear.
‘When you were entrusted with dispatches for the Senate, you handed them over to our enemies.’
What? If they knew about that now, then they knew about it in advance. Which meant … no wonder I had been preserved! I was an excellent channel for pouring misleading information into the midst of the plotters.
I felt a rush of indignation, but only a fool stays indignant at something which has saved his life. I’d been used. Pray God they still had a use for me!
‘By the laws of our State, which you must know are the most just and equable in Christendom …’
I nodded enthusiastic agreement.
‘… you deserve to die on half a dozen counts.’
I stopped nodding.
‘Nevertheless, you have not been without friends who have spoken of your youthfu
l impetuosity, your childish gullibility, and other mitigating factors.’
I shot a grateful glance at Benetto. He was still not seeing me.
‘So it is in our mind on this most glorious of our festal days to be lenient.’
I thought of the bodies dangling in the piazzetta, or Jaraj crushed at last beyond all his mighty strength, of all those taken up in the great purge last night and now lying in the pozzi, dying or wishing for death.
Such leniency as saving a young Croatian’s life once a year was going to spread pretty thin among the Venetian Senate! I hope they weren’t banking on it for getting into heaven.
But I kept the thought to myself.
‘Therefore it is our intent to release you …’
What?
‘… into the State’s service …’
Oh Christ. The galleys!
‘… which service shall take the form of the pursuit and apprehension of that most notorious thief, blasphemer, sacrilegist and murderer, Godislav the Uskok, sometimes known as Godfrey Hatfield, and the return to the State of his person – or such parts of it as will suffice for identification and display – and with it the jewels and holy relicts stolen by this infamous creature from our Treasury of San Marco!’
So there it was. I was to get my life in return for Godfrey’s. Why me? Because I knew him and knew something of his plans. Because I had shown some skill in the arts of deception and bloodshed. Because I was a Croatian and no matter if I were detected in some illegality outside the boundaries of the State, it could not reflect against the State.
All these reasons. But above all, far, far above all, because my motivation was so strong that though it took me across half the world and through half a lifetime, I would track him down and one of us would die.
They know a bargain when they see one, these Venetians.
Everything necessary was waiting for me. I have never started a new job so quickly in my life. Money, arms (including my Spanish rapier), a passport, and a boat to take me to the terrafirma.
The last person I spoke to in the palace was Benetto, roused at last from his terrible trance.
‘Kill him as slowly as you may,’ was all he said. ‘Thus may Zanetta know joy and peace.’
He was a weak man, foolish in many ways, but of a gentle temper and kind and generous disposition. These qualities I loved in him even though at the same time I ruthlessly preyed upon them. Thus may a child adore and abuse his parents. I had not embraced my own father before I fled from my Croatian home, but Benetto I embraced.
‘Zanetta shall lie in peace and joy,’ I promised.
Why shouldn’t she? She’d had the practice.
My boat left the Molo in the wake of the great flotilla. Far ahead I could see the Bucintoro shining and shimmering in the May sunshine. Behind me lay Venice, La Serenissima, gleaming on the ocean like a vision of Paradise.
But there was shit floating on her watery streets and this same sunshine that warmed my face could only rot the cold flesh of those who waved us a grotesque farewell from the gallows in the piazzetta.
My navigator leaned on his tiller and, like a tiny feather which drifts from the wing of a soaring bird, we broke away from the great festival fleet and set course for the terrafirma.
1618
Terrafirma
1
As I rode out of Padua the following day the sun was scarcely gilding the domes and towers of St Anthony’s Church. At the city gate I recovered my sword from the boy who had trotted alongside me, bearing it like a cross in a holy day procession. This custom they have in most of their larger cities, that travellers on arrival must take off their weapons and pay for them to be carried to their inn where they are stored till the time comes to depart. Then you have to pay once more for portage to the gate. Thus skilfully do they both keep the peace and make a profit.
I was riding Priam, the grey gelding I had grown so fond of during our autumn visit to the villa on the Brenta. Benetto had given me licence to take whatever I needed so I might have taken a remount also, but I felt it safer not to. Venice ruled in the towns, but the banditti ruled in the countryside and most wayfarers moved in well-armed groups if they possibly could. A man rich enough to have two horses and stupid enough to travel alone was an unrefusable gift.
I had two reasons to hope that I might overtake Godfrey. One was that he believed me dead and his own tracks covered. The second was that he had Felicia with him.
But it was still not going to be easy. Felicia might slow him down a little, but he would still move as swiftly as conditions permitted. And though he might reckon that pursuit was unlikely, he was too wise to believe it impossible.
They had travelled by boat as far as Padua, that much I was certain of. But it had taken half the night and a great deal of money (also plentifully supplied by Benetto) to discover that, after a brief pause for refreshment, they had continued west towards Vicenza. This direction puzzled me as, once on the terrafirma, I had expected Godfrey to head due north, or per- haps north-west, to reach the Venetian boundaries by the shortest route. So when I made inquiry in Vicenza and quickly discovered that the English merchant and his wife had taken the road to Trento, across the Tyrol border to the north, I swung in that direction without delay. This westward move had obviously been a diversion. Now he was making the break.
Priam was tired. It had been twenty hard miles from Padua. But, believing that my quarry might soon be in my reach, I urged him on far beyond his strength. The sun was beating down mercilessly, though not far to the north great black storm clouds had rolled about all day and the distant rumble of thunder had never ceased. I rode with an umbrella strapped to my thigh. I recalled that it had been Godfrey who had curtly instructed me that the shade was meant for the horse as much as the rider, adding that in any case some form of encumbrance was very desirable to prevent me from over-taxing my mounts.
So, I had learnt the lesson of the shade. But my poor horse was certainly being over-taxed and might have been more, had my journey not been interrupted at an inn close by Schio. The place was full of travellers, so many that only half of them could get inside. The reason was that the great storms to the north had caused a river to spill over its banks and the road ahead was flooded. When the storm passed, the waters would quickly subside, I was assured.
Immediately the thought occurred to me that perhaps Godfrey and Felicia were delayed here also. This possibility seemed increased when I made inquiry how long the floods had been causing this delay and was told since early morning.
I found the landlord, who looked as concerned and harassed as these men always do when they are making even larger profits than usual. No, he assured me, there was no English merchant and his wife in the inn.
I trusted neither his certainty nor Godfrey’s consistency and inquired who had first arrived after the floods had started. Being directed to the best room in the house, I here found a clutch of gross Switzers, all chewing shanks of ham and guzzling ale and complaining it was nothing like as good as at home.
No, they assured, no English merchant and his wife had been on the road from Vicenza which they themselves had left only that morning.
‘An early start we made, hoping to get home the sooner,’ moaned their leader. ‘But these greedy Italians are so eager for our gold marks that they delay us here even with their filthy weather!’
I thanked them and was taking my leave when one of them grunted, ‘Stay, lad. There was a fellow and a woman came through the gate just behind us. I always spot a good-looking woman! In a little open carriage, they were. But they turned off very soon on the Verona road.’
‘Oh shit!’ I said and left them with no more ceremony.
I had been a hasty fool so readily to accept the tale Godfrey had told in Vicenza. Was it likely that he would blab his real intentions to all who cared to hear? I had let my own certainty about his destination deceive me. In peace or war, Godfrey had once said, try to let your opponent’s cleverness work against him.
Still there was enough of wrath left in me, when an ostler answered my call for stabling and provender negligently, to make me strike the oaf such a buffet that he span five yards before he fell down. When he recovered I got excellent service and, news arriving soon after that the floods had subsided and the road was now open, the inn emptied sufficiently for me to get food and drink for myself and a comfortable bed.
I now abandoned speed and concentrated on certainty. Each day that passed would make Godfrey feel more secure. All I had to do was contain my impatience and make sure that no matter now far ahead of me he got, I stayed on the right trail.
I had to return to Vicenza, for the direct line from Schio would have taken me through tough, hilly country where the roads were no more than tracks and God knew what ruffians lurked in their caves. In any case I wanted to be certain I trod in Godfrey’s footsteps every inch of the way. For all I knew he had broken south off the main road before he reached Verona.
In fact he hadn’t and I was quickly able to get news of him at the east gate of the city. But now I was grown most suspicious of my prey when its spoor was clearest and this time I resisted easily the lure of another feint north along Lake Garda, only to come close to taking the secondary bait of a definite identification on the road south to Mantua. Only the fact that he still persisted as an English merchant made me hesitate. I would have expected at least one change of persona by now – but to what? Perhaps it was necessity that made him retain his nationality. He had some gift for languages but like many of his race I have met since, he made little effort to acquire a foreign tongue unless he were forced to it, and then he spoke it negligently, as though its taste displeased his palate. He could not pass for an Italian nor, I would have guessed, a German or a Spaniard either, though he had a smattering of both languages.